Broadband News

Cumbria signs with BT for phase 2 broadband extension

The phase 1 Connecting Cumbria contract is progressing well, of course if
you have not benefited yet then it may be considered a disaster and to extend
coverage further the phase 2 contract has now been signed with BT. The phase 2
contract is intended to help push coverage to the national 95% superfast target
in 2017, and for Cumbria this means adding another 2% of coverage which equates
nicely to the 5,000 premises it is believed the extension contract is aiming
for.

thinkbroadband calculation of Superfast Broadband Coverage in
Cumbria and its constituencies - updated 1st July
2015

Area

% fibre based

% superfast
30 Mbps or faster

% cable

% Openreach FTTP

% Under 2 Mbps USC

% Under 5 Mbps (new USO)

% Under 15 Mbps

Cumbria County

75.7%

71.3%

0%

0% (*)

0.9%

13.4%

23.2%

Barrow and Furness

92.4%

87.8%

0%

0%

0.6%

5.3%

10%

Carlisle

92.4%

89.3%

0%

0%

1.2%

4.1%

8.1%

Copeland

69.3%

66.8%

0%

0%

0.6%

13.3%

26.4%

Penrith and The Border

51.2%

45.2%

0%

0%

1.7%

31.8%

48.4%

Westmorland and Lonsdale

71.2%

64.2%

0%

0%

0.7%

13.5%

26.7%

Workington

74.5%

71.2%

0%

0.1%

0.8%

14.4%

22.4%

(*) The FTTP coverage from Workington vanishes when displaying to 1
decimal place, but hopefully in time as more is added it will start to appear
in overall figure.

While it is easy to criticise the roll-outs and the ambition as being too
low, it should be highlighted that Cumbria has seen fibre based coverage rise
from 57.9% to the current 75.7% in nine months which shows that
while there is still a long way to go to hit a 93% superfast target they are
getting there at a decent pace.

The 93% superfast goal is measured as lines capable of 24 Mbps and faster
and we have worked out that the difference between our standard 30 Mbps and 24
Mbps is just an extra 0.7% coverage on top of the current 71.3% figure.

Once the official release appears on the signing of the phase 2 contract we
will hopefully know the size of the local authority spending and how much BT is
committing to the area.

Comments

Still bad priorities until my cottage on the high fells has a free gigabit connection. Then the rest of them can go hang.

Seriously, Cumbria's doing well in a very rural region.

davidinnotts

over 2 years ago

For zero cable, and zero-ish FTTP, getting less than 1% in the USC category is impressive. Especially as they're only half way through phase 1.

WWWombat

over 2 years ago

Cable shouldn't be zero - Smallworld in Carlisle is now Virgin http://about.virginmedia.com/press-release/9415/virgin-media-acquires-smallworld-fibre

herdwick

over 2 years ago

Indeed, at a guess id say cable is available to what 10% of carlisle at least

omnius

over 2 years ago

I am on the Workington exchange and FTTP is NOT available

wingco1

over 2 years ago

They are constituency area and not exchange areas.

On SmallWorld a look at expanded virgin footprint is due and so will see that it is added.

andrew

over 2 years ago

http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/?area=E14000620&name=Carlisle

The coverage data has updated to include smallworld, individual postcode lookups today/tomorrow

andrew

over 2 years ago

We are classed as Carlisle but about 10miles from the city. We had an uprate speed of 0.2 the other day - couldn't even send a couple of photos on emails! Let alone watch films! Admittedly doesn't happen all the time, but the speed is very erratic. :-(